REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Head of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) Budi Gunawan said here on Saturday 39 percent of Indonesian students have received indoctrination about radicalism. Budi said that the conclusion was based on a survey carried out by the agency in 2017.

The survey identified three tertiary educational institutions (PTN) in Indonesia potential to become bases to spread radicalism in the country, he said without giving names.

While addressing the 4th national Congress of the Executive Board of the Students of the Nahdlatul Ulama Institute (BEM PTNU), he said the survey detected radicalism movements in 15 of the country's 34 provinces, and growing religious conservatism in the country.

The survey also showed that 24 percent of the Indonesian students and 23.3 percent of secondary high school children agreed on jihad to establish an Islamic state in this predominantly Muslim country.

"This condition causes great concern as it could be a serious threat to the survival of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI)," Budi said.

He said the fear was corroborated by the involvement of a graduate of a PTN in the terrorist attack in Jakarta around two years earlier.

This gives greater evidence that campuses have become targets of radicalism to mobilize fresh terrorist candidates, he said.

"Students, therefore, have to be able to see which of the things are good and which are bad. Radicalism threat among students is highly potential," he said.

He underlined strategic role of students to bring to reality civil society, adding history shows that students have been motor for reform in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country.

"Students should not be utilized by groups of radicals to break the community structure we have established with great sacrifice," he said.

The Congress was attended by representatives of BEM PTNU from 272 campuses all over Indonesia.

Budi asked students of PTNU to be active in battling radicalism and terrorism to protect NKRI. "After the Cold War, now we are trapped in ideological struggle influencing us in seeing things as a nation," he said.

Nahdlatul Ulama is the largest non political Islamic organization and is known to be highly moderate.

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